According to a recent study, published in The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, too much vitamin D may lead to slower reaction times and increase the risk of falling among seniors.

For the study, the researchers analyzed the effects of vitamin D on the three groups of women aged between 50 and 70. Three groups of women were assigned different doses of IU: 600, 2,000, and 4,000.

The analysis, performed by the scientists, showed that taking 4,000 IU of vitamin D per day might not be a problem for young people, but it could compromise older adults’ ability to walk or catch balance to avoid a fall.

The researchers believe that more studies are needed to determine whether slower reaction times are associated with an increase in the risk of falls.

A new study from Ball State University in Muncie, IN, finds that senior people who exercise regularly have their hearts, lungs, and muscles in equivalent shape to people in their forties.

In the study, the three types of participants have been involved: seven women and 21 men in their 70s who exercised regularly, 10 women and 10 men in their 70s who led sedentary lifestyles, and 10 women and 10 men in their 20s, who were all healthy and who exercised regularly.

Lead researcher Scott Trappe, director of the Human Performance Laboratory, explains: “Exercise wins’ is the take-home message. We saw that people who exercise regularly year after year have better overall health. These 75-year-olds — men and women — have similar cardiovascular health to a 40–45-year-old.”

According to a new study, a rambling and non-specific speech might be the early sign of the coming mental decline – Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. Researchers managed to find evidence that people with mild cognitive impairment are more likely to use more words than necessary and they usually need more time to find the right words compared to their healthy counterparts.

For the study, the researchers compared the language abilities of 22 healthy young persons, 24 senior persons, and 22 people with MCI. Patients with MCI gave long and redundant with their answers to simple questions.

Lead researcher Janet Cohen Sherman from Massachusetts General Hospital explains: “They were much less concise in conveying information, the sentences they produced were much longer, they had a hard time staying on point and I guess you could say they were much more roundabout in getting their point across.”

A new study investigated the impact of a sedentary lifestyle on the biological age of senior women.

Modern science associates the telomere length with ageing and disease. With age, telomeres become shorter until the cells die or transform into oncogenic cells. Short telomeres are connected to cancer, heart diseases, and diabetes.

The team of researchers at the University of California-San Diego, led by Aladdin Shadyab, Ph.D., from the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health at UCSD School of Medicine, examined the effects of a sedentary lifestyle on the age of cells in senior women.

According to the findings of the study, women who exercised for under 40 minutes and spent sitting more than 10 hours per day had biologically older cells compared to women who had been sitting less and exercised more. As the scientists note, low physical activity seemed to account for an eight-year biological age gap between those who exercised and those who did not.

A new study, published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, suggests that traditional Mediterranean diet can help prevent brain atrophy in senior adults.

This research didn’t find a relation between fish and meat consumption. It suggests that other components of the diet, or a combination of them, can be responsible for this association.

Michelle Luciano, PhD, one of the researchers, says: “In our study, eating habits were measured before brain volume was which suggests that the diet may be able to provide long-term protection to the brain. Still, larger studies are needed to confirm these results.”